


if I could make amends with my shadows

by bereft_of_frogs



Series: let the human in (whumptober 2020) [10]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Drug Use, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Melancholy, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Sickfic, Whump, Whumptober 2020, Withdrawal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:22:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27335629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bereft_of_frogs/pseuds/bereft_of_frogs
Summary: “I didn’t say that,” she responds, sitting back in her seat. “I said it would help make sure there was no whispering about rebellion.”“She has a point,” Bruce says. “Bread and circuses and all that.” He glances around at them. “Right you guys wouldn’t…it’s too long of a story to explain, it’s fine. Just to say, yeah, I agree with Val. We should have a party.”Team Revengers plans a party. Loki finds he's not so enthused about it as he once would have been.
Relationships: Loki & Thor (Marvel)
Series: let the human in (whumptober 2020) [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1993756
Comments: 11
Kudos: 86
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	if I could make amends with my shadows

**Author's Note:**

> written for whumptober 2020, day 22: Do These Tacos Taste Funny to You? (withdrawal) 
> 
> warnings: past drug use, alcohol, vomiting, very vaguely implied past sexual assault
> 
> fic title: 'I Of The Storm', Of Monsters and Men

“We should have a party.” The Valkyrie’s suggestion is met with a stunned silence.

“A party,” Bruce says flatly after another moment.

“Yeah,” she shrugs. “We’ve been floating around in this damned contraption for a week now, I think people are getting restless. And it’s not like we don’t have enough booze.”

“Now, see, I was under the impression you were saving it all for yourself.” Loki leans further back in his chair.

The Valkyrie turns to him with a withering expression and looks like she’s about a millisecond away from sticking her tongue out at him. Instead she grins viciously at him. “I seem to recall that you certainly enjoyed the Grandmaster’s stores on Sakaar-”

“Okay.” Thor stops them before they can really start sniping at each other. “So you think we should have a party?”

“We’ve already had the funeral feast. This will be something…to de-stress. To let loose for a night, not have to worry about grief or rations or survival. It will go a long way to making sure the people stay content, as much as they can be, and keep them from looking too closely at a certain someone’s rule and getting a little too interested in unrest…”

Now it’s Thor’s turn to level her with a look, one that’s made slightly more menacing with his single-eyed stare. “You think there’s going to be rebellion?”

“I didn’t say that,” she responds, sitting back in her seat. “I said it would help make sure there was no _whispering_ about rebellion.”

“She has a point,” Bruce says. “Bread and circuses and all that.” He glances around at them. “Right you guys wouldn’t…it’s too long of a story to explain, it’s fine. Just to say, yeah, I agree with Val. We should have a party.”

“What do you think, Loki?” Thor has been making an effort to include him in decisions, to the disapproval of probably everyone else on board the ship, including Loki himself.

“Whatever you like, brother,” he says with a grin. “You’re the king after all.” After so many years, Loki finds he doesn’t find the statement so bitter.

Thor holds his gaze for a moment, then looks back at the others. “Well. I guess we’re having a party.”

They don’t have much in the way of food, but after conferring with Heimdall about their next resupply point, they manage to increase the rations. Some of the older women adapt a sweet cake recipe for the children. And, as the Valkyrie pointed out, they have plenty of booze.

The feast takes place in the main hall where Thor’s coronation had taken place. There had been some questions about the reasons behind having such an event, but in the end everyone invents their own reasons. Some speculate the nearness to the winter holiday, others about various anniversaries and birthdays. In the end, they don’t need much of an excuse to let loose.

Loki mingles through the crowds, keeping mostly to himself. No one has explicitly complained about his presence on the ship, and he doesn’t want to remind anyone that his presence might be objectionable. He doesn’t fancy being cast adrift again, to skulk in the shadows, hiding from-

He takes a cup from a tray. It’s filled with a bright violet liquid that burns on its way down his throat. He scowls down at it. The Valkyrie had been correct. He had been, for lack of a better term, properly _wasted_ for most of his stay on Sakaar. A mixture of grief, of uncertainty, of shock at his dethronement and the appearance of Hela, had driven him to the bottle. That had been easy. And it pleased the Grandmaster, who helped him discover new ways to lose himself for a little while. It had perhaps been a mistake, but it had helped him slither further into the Grandmaster’s circles.

It did mean that he didn’t remember many of his nights on Sakaar, but perhaps he didn’t want to.

The alcohol doesn’t go down as smoothly as it used to. It turns his stomach a bit. He takes his cup and slips out of the crowds, thinking to leave and find a quiet place to drink alone, when he sees Thor out of the corner of his eye. He’s up on the raised platform, looking out at the stars. Loki hesitates a moment more, torn between the desire for solitude and the inexplicable pull that keeps him gravitating towards his brother.

“Having fun?” He startles Thor out of his thoughts as he mounts the few stairs.

Thor settles an easygoing mask over his features, turning back towards the people. “Of course. You?”

“Of course.”

Thor laughs at how plain the sarcasm is in his voice. “It’s not much. But I think they’re enjoying themselves.” The people do seem to be having a good time. Their voices and laughter reach them on the dais. “Were you leaving?”

“It was just a bit noisy. I thought I’d find a more serene place to drink in peace.” The liquid in his cup is rapidly warming. He feels rather nauseous at the thought of it.

“Ah. I was hoping you’d stick around. But perhaps you’re sick of parties, considering that’s all you got up to on Sakaar.”

Loki snorts. “There wasn’t much else to do on that planet, unless one wanted to end up in the fighting pits. It took you how long to be thrown to the arena? Five minutes?”

“Ten, but remember, I started a successful rebellion in a day.”

“Fair enough.”

“I’m glad to be free of it,” Thor says. “I can’t say I wanted to spend any more time there than I had to.”

Loki’s expression falters. “No. Though you thought _I’d_ do well there.”

“I was trying to get a rise out of you,” Thor says. “I didn’t mean it. Well, some of it. You have always loved chaos, especially sowing it among the sycophants in father’s court. I’m assuming you enjoyed that about Sakaar.”

Loki smiles, fondly remembering the night he nearly started a knife fight among two of the Grandmaster’s servants. An echo of decades earlier when he did start a duel between two visiting nobles, with their parents completely ignorant of his part in it. Thor knew. Thor, his eternal co-conspirator back then, long before things changed. “It’s true. I did quite enjoy the chaos.”

“But the rest of it didn’t fit. It seemed too…shallow. Too…I don’t know. It wasn’t really you. I knew you’d come along. And if not, I figured you’d get what you needed out of that place and move on.” Thor turns to him, smile crooked. “It didn’t suit you. Not really.”

Loki takes a sip out of his cup. It tastes awful. There’s a headache starting at the base of his skull. He’s exhausted. “You’re right,” he says. “I’m rather sick of parties.”

Thor frowns at him. “Are you all right?”

Loki nods. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.” He presses the cup of foul liquid into Thor’s hand. “Enjoy yourself.”

“I will.”

Loki slips away unnoticed. He lies in bed awake for a long time, listening to the steady thrum of the engines working away, and underneath, the hum of voices and music from the party. It’s like when he and Thor would be put to bed before the end of feasting. He would lay next to his window so he could hear the voices drifting up on the wind.

His stomach feels unsettled, like the alcohol isn’t sitting well with him. After two weeks of consuming little else, perhaps his body is just rejecting it. He won’t touch the stuff for a while. The taste of it brought back too many memories of the less savory aspects of the Grandmaster’s parties. He’d rather leave it behind.

The next morning dawns - or their approximation of dawn - with everyone on the ship pleasantly worse for wear. The people Loki passes on his way to the command center give him weary greetings with red eyes but lighter countenances. As much as he hates to admit it, the Valkyrie had been right.

She says as much.

“Say it,” she prods at him. “Say I was right.”

“You were right,” Loki caves. “Though I was not the one that needed convincing. You’ll have to find Dr. Banner for your satisfaction.”

“Oh, I already have, don’t you worry. Where were you?”

“I wasn’t much in the partying mood myself, though I recognized the good it did for the people. Went to bed early.”

She gives him an odd look. “You okay?”

“Fine.” Though he’s still tired. No matter how much he slept and how little booze he’d consumed, he feels run down.

“Hm. None of my business.” And she leaves him alone without another word.

He feels worse as the day goes on, even admitting to himself that he might be coming down with something. He avoids concerned glances, begging fatigue, and goes to bed early.

That night he falls truly ill.

It wakes him from a dead sleep, a sleep so deep he was not even properly dreaming, only suck in an impression. He dreams that he was on Sakaar, that he had never left, though it’s just a feeling, not even a proper dream.

He wakes with a gasp, the heavily perfumed, heavy air of Sakaar giving way to the clean, cold, almost surgical taste of the ship. There’s another taste in his mouth, acidic and his stomach flips. He barely makes it to his hands and knees before he’s retching on the floor, all he had eaten for dinner that night coming up in painful spasms. In a break between heaves, he manages to crawl to the waste bin to finish expelling the contents of his stomach, then sits back against the wall.

He’s quivering, drenched in sweat that keeps pouring down his skin, plastering the hair to his face. It soaks his shirt, leaving him chilled where the wet fabric sticks to him. He fights to catch his breath, mind spinning between Sakaar and the ship, between being drunk and being ill. He can’t quite grasp what’s going on but knows something is seriously wrong.

Feverish, disoriented, he barely knows where he’s going when he stumbles out into the hallway, still in his nightclothes, still barefoot. He’s searching for something, reaching out for something, but he doesn’t know where to go to find it. The halls are unfamiliar, though he feels like he _should_ recognize where he is.

He has a flash of a long ago memory, of being a child wandering through hallways towards a room of warmth and safety, but that sense is gone. He’s searching for that, but it’s gone forever.

He is afraid.

He is searching for someone, but he can’t articulate who.

Deliriously he stumbles through the halls, until he slips on something, falling to the ground, and cannot bring himself to get up. His hands and knees sting from the collision with the grated walkway. His head spins. He feels like he’s going to vomit again but there can’t be anything else left to bring up.

 _What’s happening?_ He thinks as he gags, back spasming. _What’s happening to me?_

He thinks he feels a hand on his shoulder, just before he blacks out.

Loki wakes.

His heart is beating fast, thudding away in his chest. His mouth is dry and foul-tasting, stomach sour and aching. His head is clearer than he last remembers it being, but that doesn’t mean much. The memories of the past few hours are blurred and almost entirely of being extremely nauseous.

“I know you’re awake.” Valkyrie. From somewhere to his side.

“You,” he says, stomach flipping. He swallows. “What happened?”

“I found you stumbling around the corridors. Thought to bring you to the infirmary before you fell into some air shaft, or scared a civilian or something.” There’s a rustling sound, a slide of cloth over metal and a dull thud. Her voice grows closer. “I should have known. The Grandmaster always gives the good stuff to his favorites, but he doesn’t mention how back the comedown is once you can’t get any more.” He manages to blink his eyes open. “Withdrawal. You’re going through withdrawal.”

“Fuck.”

“Yup. Found you delirious in the halls. You’re lucky.”

“Yes, I feel quite lucky.” Loki swallows. A violent shudder passes through him. “I didn’t think…it was only two weeks. Damn. I didn’t…”

“It can happen,” the Valkyrie says quietly. “It’s random, sometimes. It takes a long time to leave the system, clings onto the cells, it seems like. He has his little research and development team cooking up whatever it takes to get people higher and higher…but he doesn’t really give a shit what happens in the comedown. This honestly doesn’t seem like the worst case scenario, if that makes you feel any better.”

“Lovely. It doesn’t,” Loki rasps. “I sense you know this from personal experience?” Another, violent, shudder passes through him. He grips the side of the bed tight to ride out the following cramping.

She sits down on the counter. “I was on Sakaar for a long time, your highness. I made some mistakes, early on. Wasn’t always as good at keeping myself out of Gast’s orbit. But I learned. The designer drugs - those you need to stay away from. I kept to the regular booze, worked the synthetic shit out of my system, and never touched it again.”

“How long’d it take?”

She shrugs. “Long. But don’t worry. I’d been taking them a lot longer that two weeks. You’ll be fine soon enough.”

He nods. Tears prickle at the corners of his eyes. Another spasm that bends his spine. Emotions roil within him. Shame, fear, longing. He fights to hold back the foolish tears, and opens his mouth to tell the Valkyrie to leave him alone when the door opens again and Thor enters like a storm. An upset storm.

Loki finds it in himself to groan with something akin to disdain. At least less like misery. “You summoned Thor?”

The pair of them give him a matching withering look. They’re spending too much time together, Loki decides.

“Of course she summoned me,” Thor says as if it were an obvious conclusion. Then he turns back to the Valkyrie and talks over him. “Is this dangerous?”

She shrugs. “We’ll have to keep an eye on him. Best to wean them off gradually, but…we don’t have any of the Grandmaster’s shit.”

Thor nods. “Nothing we can do?”

“Majesty. He’s going to be fine. He’s not the first of the Grandmaster’s little pets-” Loki scoffs and she ignores him. “-to go through this kind of withdrawal. Some died, yeah, but most didn’t. It’s not going to be a fun experience, but, he’ll probably live.”

“Good. Okay.”

“I’ll leave you two alone. Call me if you need me.”

When the Valkyrie leaves, Loki holds his defiance for another second before it dissolves in the face of another wave of pain. He shuts his eyes for this one, unwilling to face Thor’s look of pity. The edge of the cot dips, a warm spot settling beside him.

“You don’t have to just stay and watch the consequences of my own folly, Thor.” Loki says through gritted teeth. “I’m sure you have better things to do.”

“You’re right,” Thor says. “I have better things to do. But I’ll stay here for a while, I think.”

“I know what you think.” There’s a pause, Thor’s confusion evident without him having to say anything. “You’re right. I am ashamed.”

Thor waits a long moment before responding. “I don’t think you should be ashamed.”

Loki scoffs. “Don’t you? You were right. I deserved that place and it deserved me.” His eyes burn again.

“I told you last night, I didn’t mean it. I shouldn’t have said it, as I shouldn’t have said a lot of things. Damn. I should have seen it, you seemed so distant last night.”

“I suppose,” he laughs. “I was rather sick of parties.” His stomach flips again and he swallows back bile.

Thor’s hand settles in his hair. Loki almost tries to shrug out from under it but his ability for coherent thought is starting to slip again. He closes his eyes and says nothing about Thor’s hand in his hair, or his thumb as it starts to move, smoothing down the sweat-slicked dark locks.

“It was just so easy,” Loki whispers after a long while. Thor says nothing. “To let him give me whatever he wanted. It took away all the…all the messiness, all the pain and uncertainty. And it was effective, in my goal to get on his good side. To refuse them would have been suspect. Taking them with enthusiasm drew him closer to him.” He bites his tongue. He’s not ready to get into what came next. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be ready to tell Thor, especially, what else happened in the Grandmaster’s tower. He’s spared from it by another spasm of pain that leaves him gasping, the room spinning.

“I think I’ll beg off parties for a while.”

Thor chuckles, the rumble of it low and soothing. “Very fair, brother dear. You should sleep.”

Thor sounds so serious, Loki thinks. He reflects back on the look on his face as he stared out at the stars the night before. The drawn look on his face when the Valkyrie mentioned a party. Maybe they both needed a break from it. Maybe they both needed to withdraw.

The sympathy was probably just the fever talking, Loki thinks in the next moment. But as unconsciousness takes him, he moves closer to Thor, and Thor moves closer to him.

It’s peace.

Until Loki wakes several hours later heaving, but the peace was nice while it lasted. And having someone there to hold his hair and rub his back as he vomited up bile into a metal basin. It was nice not to be alone.

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of a weird story without too much of a plot (parts of it where originally folded into another whumptober prompt that I didn't finish in time) but that's what these prompt challenges are for, right? I'm hoping so, at least. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this one! I have four prompts left to post before the end of the month (and a couple more that I...did not successfully complete that I'm hoping to get to in December...) so I will be back in a couple days! 
> 
> As always, kudos/comments/shares/frogs always appreciated. Happy Sunday!


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